Displaying 1 - 5 of 5
-
Barthel, M., Sauppe, S., Levinson, S. C., & Meyer, A. S. (2016). The timing of utterance planning in task-oriented dialogue: Evidence from a novel list-completion paradigm. Frontiers in Psychology, 7: 1858. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01858.
Abstract
In conversation, interlocutors rarely leave long gaps between turns, suggesting that next speak- ers begin to plan their turns while listening to the previous speaker. The present experiment used analyses of speech onset latencies and eye-movements in a task-oriented dialogue paradigm to investigate when speakers start planning their response. Adult German participants heard a confederate describe sets of objects in utterances that either ended in a noun (e.g. Ich habe eine Tür und ein Fahrrad (‘I have a door and a bicycle’)) or a verb form (Ich habe eine Tür und ein Fahrrad besorgt (‘I have gotten a door and a bicycle’)), while the presence or absence of the final verb either was or was not predictable from the preceding sentence structure. In response, participants had to name any unnamed objects they could see in their own display in utterances such as Ich habe ein Ei (‘I have an egg’). The main question was when participants started to plan their response. The results are consistent with the view that speakers begin to plan their turn as soon as sufficient information is available to do so, irrespective of further incoming words. -
Levinson, S. C. (2016). “Process and perish” or multiple buffers with push-down stacks? [Commentary on Christiansen & Slater]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39: e81. doi:10.1017/S0140525X15000862.
Abstract
This commentary raises two issues: (1) Language processing is hastened not only by internal pressures but also externally by turntaking in language use; (2) the theory requires nested levels of processing, but linguistic levels do not fully nest; further, it would seem to require multiple memory buffers, otherwise there’s no obvious treatment for discontinuous structures, or for verbatim recall. -
Levinson, S. C. (2016). Language and mind: Let's get the issues straight! In S. D. Blum (
Ed. ), Making sense of language: Readings in culture and communication [3rd ed.] (pp. 68-80). Oxford: Oxford University Press. -
Levinson, S. C. (2016). The countable singulare tantum. In A. Reuneker, R. Boogaart, & S. Lensink (
Eds. ), Aries netwerk: Een constructicon (pp. 145-146). Leiden: Leiden University. -
Levinson, S. C. (2016). Turn-taking in human communication, origins, and implications for language processing. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(1), 6-14. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2015.10.010.
Abstract
Most language usage is interactive, involving rapid turn-taking. The turn-taking system has a number of striking properties: turns are short and responses are remarkably rapid, but turns are of varying length and often of very complex construction such that the underlying cognitive processing is highly compressed. Although neglected in cognitive science, the system has deep implications for language processing and acquisition that are only now becoming clear. Appearing earlier in ontogeny than linguistic competence, it is also found across all the major primate clades. This suggests a possible phylogenetic continuity, which may provide key insights into language evolution.
Share this page